After a couple of weeks riddled with further controversy, the upshot of it all is that President Burst has re-claimed top spot. Some Shysters, namely The King Of Roundshaw, have clearly voiced their displeasure that his position at the top is somewhat a false one, given the ongoing Roundshawgate investigation in which Mr Dellafera, who was sitting top at the start of week 33 all of a sudden found that his predictions that he claimed to have posted, had mysteriously vanished. As a result, the eight points that The King had scored were unable to be tallied onto his total. We still await his decision. Other unconfirmed reports were suggesting that our Brown Envelope fiend The Pride of Ganleys had sabotaged his scores, which left the slippery one top after week 33. Defending champ, The Lingfield Longer is still clinging on to his ambition of retaining his crown in what was a low scoring week.

The top four have now broken away from the chasers and there is real concern for those in behind that all they are playing for now is a place in the Shysters Europa Tinpot League. Early pacesetter, Union Leader O'Donnell has endured a torrid second half of the season, while the mid season surge from The Original Late Arrival, Mr Relf, proved nothing more than a false dawn. Rival Shysters, yours truly and my Cup conquerer, The Fife Flyer now seem to be going nowhere fast, while the predicted title challenges of Dr Orme and The Pearly Queen Of Sutton, have never really got off the ground.

At the bottom, with Shysters Wildman, Amore and Cane all but consigned to the Premier Division scrapheap, it is a three way fight to see who will join the other three also rans in the lottery that is the Championshipn next season. Mikey Gregory has given himself more than a fighting chance of beating the drop, by gaining two points on his rivals for the last not so coveted spot. The Grimsby Grinder and DJ Brown now have the look of two deeply concerned Shysters. The one who may be showing the most strain in this fight is DJ Brown as The Grinder is being widely touted as the Wigan Athletic of The Shysters League. Gregory does have momentum with him now, but who will show the stomach for the fight when it gets down to the nitty gritty??

Championship

FUNKASAURAS CONTINUES TO FLOURISH AS OTHERS STUTTER

Chezzer Funkasauras Browne ensured this week that the numerous bottles of Champagne that were bought for the Boycee Hewitt promotion party remained uncorked for at least another week. The Funk further cemented his position in second spot with an eight point score and narrowed the gap at the top to 15 points. Although that is still likely to be an insurmountable deficit to overturn in such a short space of time, as long as it is still mathematically possible to catch to catch the long standing front runner and as long as there is that hope, he has given fair warning to Mr Hewitt that resting on his laurels would be an unwise decision. From being an almost nailed on certainty for promotion, Roy Mifsud suddenly finds himself casting a rather nervous glance over his shoulder. Despite being in the third of the four promotion spots available, Fishlips is only one disastrous week from dropping out of the promotion frame altogether. Beanhead Wilson also stuttered badly but just about clings on to the last promotion place as Steve Giddings creeps back into the race by closing the gap between fourth and fifth to one point. But now we have a new challenger who has soared into contention. Geordie Boy Shinn all of a sudden finds himself just six points off a promotion place. Punters always like to side with Shysters who have momentum and Shinn's upward move has clearly tempted shrewd punters to part with their money. It will be interesting to see if Shinn can continue to show the good form his beloved Newcastle HAVE NOT shown recently.

In behind, Greggs Shareholder, Garry Allan seems to be wilting under the strain this title race can put upon Shysters. Seagull Stubbs had shown signs that he was moving into the promotion shake up, but has fallen away, while two of the Slippery Roche clan, Tom and Elder Lemon, together with Kaz Short now have time to contemplate how to rebuild for next seasons promotion push. As his big day fast approaches Goldenboy Nicol keeps plugging away and is rewarded by climbing the table this week. Goldenboy shrugged off accusations of laziness by outspoken Premier Division Shyster The King Of Roundshaw to leap above Richard Colbourne and both Nicol and Colbourne are being considered as serious contenders for promotion next season.

Mr Trevor Leach once again reverted to type by failing to post, a move which caused Leach season ticket holders and Junior Leacher ticket holder to start demanding refunds. Marc Johnson clearly just wants the season to end now after another shocking week and his place in the table has all of a sudden started to come under threat from a resurgent Caroline Brown who is continuing to defy critics by performing well above herself. A real dark horse for next season possibly?? What do u think, Roy?? We need to find out from that dodgy Roche clan what they have done to the youngest of their party as he once again failed to post. The less said about Shysters Nagle and Bullock, the better. You will also ntice that the Basingstoke Bruiser once again failed to trouble the scorers, although he did actually manage to submit some scores. His nil point score was only the third instance in Shysters League history that a Shyster has done this despite submitting and the second time he has achieved it. The only other Shysters who has managed this feat is unbelievably our defending champion, The Lingfield Lounger way way back on the second week of the first season.

Another tricky set of fixtures await in Matchday 35, but in this pressure cooker atmosphere, every remaining week is absolutely crucial. So all that remains for me now is to wish all you slippery Shower of Shysters the very best of luck for this week.